“Our values in Japan regard hard work as important. To work is good. It’s completely different thinking from the Old Testament. We should share our philosophy with many other nations,” Aso said during a discussion on the global economic crisis.
“In the Old Testament, God gave Adam punishment: labour. The Old Testament, Christianity, Islam — if you add them up, what percent of the world is that? About 70 percent of religions hold a philosophy that work is a punishment,” Aso said on December 7 in Southern Japan.
The Japanese are famous for their long working hours, which have turned the island nation into the world’s second largest economy.
Thousands of Japanese literally work themselves to death each year, a problem that has become so common it has spawned its own word – “karoshi“.
Source: Yahoo News
Read this reply to Aso’s statements [via Japundit]. The article mentions these data on number of hours worked among other things:
| #1 | Australia: | 1,814 hours | |
| #2 | Japan: | 1,801 hours | |
| #3 | United States: | 1,792 hours | |
| #4 | Canada: | 1,718 hours | |
| #5 | United Kingdom: | 1,673 hours | |
| #6 | Italy: | 1,591 hours | |
| #7 | Sweden: | 1,564 hours | |
| #8 | France: | 1,453 hours | |
| #9 | Norway: | 1,337 hours |
Source: Nation Master based on OECD
Article by Japan Research Institute: A Factorial Analysis of the Decline in Japan’s Labor Productivity Through an International Comparison by Industry
Kitsune's Thoughts 
Taro Aso, sometimes i think your surname is misspelled, as is double ss, an h and an le.
lol Well, you are not alone in this pattern of thinking 😛
Lol on a random note, the Kuroshitsuji pic totally caught my attention XD.
Indeed, it is not easy to avoid the charm of Sebastian 😛